Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile (38 page)

My head pounded. Spots swam before my eyes. I had no strength left. Artemon had bested me. I had failed—failed utterly, for I had not even managed to rescue Bethesda. The bandits would sail off with her, and her last sight of me would be of my useless, bloody corpse lying on the wharf.

Then I heard a roar, saw a blur of movement, and felt a shuddering impact from one side. Artemon was no longer atop me. Instead, in the next moment, it was Artemon who lay pinned on his back on the wharf, with Cheelba atop him. His blade went clattering across the wharf and disappeared over the edge. Cheelba roared.

The soldiers converged on us. They were so close now that I could see the blood on their weapons and the fierce determination in their eyes—these were no weaklings such as we had encountered at the tomb—but the sudden, horrifying spectacle of a man fighting a lion with his bare hands stopped them in their tracks.

I looked at the
Medusa,
which continued to pull away. The gangplank was still extended, but a widening gulf had opened between the wharf and the ship. Amid the gaping bandits and sailors at the rail, I glimpsed Bethesda’s face. Mavrogenis still held her fast.

I scrambled to my feet. I took a running leap toward the gangplank. For a moment, like Mercury, I seemed to have wings on my feet. Even so, I fell short. I plunged toward the water—then caught the edge of the gangplank with my fingertips. From somewhere I found the strength to pull myself up and over. I scurried up the ramp and onto the ship, then fell on my side, gasping for breath.

Above me, the sail fluttered and snapped taut, filled by the wind. The dark blue sky seemed to pitch and heave in counterpoint to the waves below. I closed my eyes for an instant, then felt strong hands grip my arms and pull me to my feet.

I looked toward the wharf, which was spinning to one side and rapidly growing more distant. Cheelba had vanished. The soldiers had seized Artemon and pulled him to his feet, so that he and I were mirror images, except that Artemon was covered with blood.

“We have to go back for him!” one of the men shouted.

“Impossible,” I heard Mavrogenis say. “The king’s men have Artemon now.”

I looked at the captain. He relaxed his grip on Bethesda. She pulled free and ran toward me. The men holding me stepped back, allowing me to embrace her.

“But what will we do without Artemon?” wailed one of the men.

Mavrogenis thrust out his jaw. “For now, you’ll take orders from me.” He stared defiantly from face to face, and ended by glaring at me.

I pulled Bethesda close. She hid her face against my chest.

Mavrogenis cocked his head. “Artemon ordered the girl to be taken ashore during the raid, and locked in a room in the customs house. He meant to leave her behind—so why did he change his mind at the last moment and bring her back here? And how is it that the Roman knows her?” He scowled. “Until we know what these two are up to, lock them in the cabin!”

I held Bethesda tight. Men converged on us from all sides. In a matter of moments we would be overpowered, dragged across the deck, and locked away. Without Artemon or Ismene aboard to protect Bethesda, what would become of her? What would become of me?

“No, wait!” cried Ujeb. “No one lays a finger on Pecunius! Don’t you fools understand? He’s our leader now.”

“What?” Mavrogenis glowered.

“Pecunius beat Artemon in a fair fight.”

“Hardly!” said Mavrogenis. “The lion interceded.”

“Maybe so, but Pecunius did what no man here had the courage to do—he took on Artemon. And now Artemon is stuck on that wharf, mauled by a lion and captured by the king’s men, and Pecunius stands here among us, with hardly a scratch on him. I’d say that means Pecunius won. He at least deserves a vote. And until we get clear of this mess and can have a proper vote, I say Pecunius should be our leader. We can’t be without a leader!”

Many of the men nodded their heads and grunted in agreement. The grunts turned into shouts.

“Pecunius bested Artemon!”

“The gods showed favor to the Roman!”

“Pecunius should lead us!”

“Madness!” I whispered under my breath. And yet …

Strange are the pathways laid down by the Fates. Unforeseen, and sometimes puzzling, are the gifts of Fortuna. Only moments before, I thought Bethesda lost and myself a dead man. Now I was reunited with Bethesda, holding her tight, and the men around me were shouting my praises.

The doors of the cargo hold were still open. With my arm around Bethesda, I walked toward the hold. Men stepped back to let us pass. Standing at the edge of the opening, I peered down at the golden sarcophagus. The sun was too low in the west to cast light directly into the hold. Even so, how brightly the gold shone! How dazzling were the emeralds and all the other precious stones!

Never, on that long-ago morning when I rose from bed, ready to mark my twenty-second birthday, could I have foreseen that the Fates would lead me to such a pass: to stand on the deck of a pirate ship and be proclaimed a king of bandits! Even more amazing, the golden sarcophagus of Alexander the Great was in my possession. That meant—for the moment, at least—that I must be one of the richest men in the world.

I thought of my upbringing in Rome and all the lessons my father had taught me. I thought of my journey to see the Seven Wonders. I thought of my aimless but amiable existence in the teeming city of Alexandria. Had all the strands of my life led inexorably to this moment, this juncture, this destiny?

I lifted my gaze and looked around us. The
Medusa
had reached the middle of the harbor and was fast approaching the Pharos Lighthouse. We were surrounded by water on all sides, far from the nearest land. It would have been better, if I had reached my decision earlier, when the shore was nearer, but there was nothing to be done about that now. I took a deep breath.

“Everyone, stand back!” I shouted.

To my amazement, the men obeyed me. I felt the thrill of command. No wonder Artemon has so loved his status as a king of the bandits, surrounded by minions to do his bidding. This was something I could get used to, I thought—and then shook my head at such foolishness.

I whispered in Bethesda’s ear. She nodded to show that she understood.

I counted to three, and then, holding hands, we ran to the rail, leaped over, and plunged into the waves below.

XXXVI

“I thought you could swim. You call yourself a daughter of the Nile!”

Next to me, Bethesda sputtered and flailed her arms, desperate to keep her head above water. As terrible a swimmer as I might be, she was even worse.

Somehow I had managed to find the proper rhythm for treading water, kicking my legs and flapping my arms to stay afloat, but Bethesda was having a harder time. A measure of the peril she faced was her silence in response to my grousing. Normally she would have thrown my words back at me, but bantering was beyond her now. She was in dire straits.

I circled behind her and looped one arm around her. “Lie back against me. Relax and stop struggling! I can hold you up,” I promised, though I was by no means certain that I could do so.

I peered around us. The waves were so high that at times I couldn’t see the shoreline in any direction. The only point of orientation was the towering Pharos Lighthouse, which for all its immensity seemed very far away. The waves seemed to slap against each other at random, traveling in all directions at once. Were we being swept back toward the wharf, or out to sea? I had no idea, and lacked the skill to take us in any particular direction.

Worst of all, my stamina was rapidly dwindling. The excitement of the fight with Artemon had stirred the last of my strength, but that burst of energy was long spent. The water, colder than I had expected, was sapping whatever spark remained in me.

For the second time that day, I prepared to meet my ancestors. At least mine would not be a bloody, horrific death at the hands of another man. Neptune would take me, as he had taken so many men in the past. Fish would devour me, and no tomb would hold my remains except the vast sarcophagus of the sea.

Bethesda stopped her flailing and lay back against me, as I had told her to do. I had a goal now: to keep her head above water as long as I could. I struggled against the waves to maintain a steady rhythm, kicking with my legs and using my free arm as a rudder. So far, so good—but I could almost count the number of strokes left in me. I was cold, and exhausted, and ready for sleep.

Bethesda whispered something. I turned my ear toward her, but her words were not directed to me.

“I call upon you, Moira,” she murmured. “I call upon you, Ananke. Egyptian Ufer of the Mighty Name, help us!”

Magic! The poor girl, in her extremity, was calling upon the same dark forces that Ismene had called upon. What incantations and bits of sorcery had Ismene taught Bethesda during their long, idle days together in that hut on the outskirts of the Cuckoo’s Nest? What good was such witchery to two mortals who could not swim, yet who found themselves in the midst of a vast harbor? What a simple, foolish girl Bethesda was, and how I longed to kiss her and hold her at that moment, but it was all I could do to keep one arm around her as I desperately struggled to stay afloat. The end was very near.

“Bethesda,” I whispered, for I lacked sufficient breath to speak more loudly. “Bethesda, leave off your incantations and listen to me.” Before we both died, I wanted to speak to her openly and honestly, to express to her a certain emotion that no self-respecting Roman should ever feel for a slave, let alone utter aloud, but about which I could no longer be silent.

She seemed not to hear me, for she continued to murmur. “Moira … Ananke … Ufer of the Mighty Name…”

“Bethesda!” Could she hear me or not? “Bethesda, I love—”

“Use the hook, you fool!” someone shouted.

The boat seemed to materialize from nowhere. Suddenly it loomed behind me, so close I thought the hull would strike my head. Then something took hold of my tunic and lifted me upward. I held fast to Bethesda, then saw that a second hook had been slipped inside the neckline of her gown and was lifting her alongside me. Hands gripped us and pulled us upward and over the rail and onto the deck of the ship.

For a moment, lying on my back, I was completely disoriented, for it seemed we were not on a ship at all but had somehow been transported to another world—a world where all surfaces were of shimmering gold and silver or brightly colored paint or inlays of lapis and ivory, and every image was more beautiful and exquisite than the last … a world of gorgeous lotus blossoms and white-robed suppliants, of sparkling blue water and golden rushes, of iridescent peacocks and dazzling flamingos. Overhead, gauzy curtains wafted gently in the breeze and the first star of evening shone in the darkling sky.

“You’re sure these two jumped off the pirate ship?” someone asked.

“Certain of it.”

“But this can’t be the Cuckoo’s Child. He doesn’t fit the description at all. And there was no mention of a girl.”

“Even so, I saw them jump from the ship.”

Suddenly an unfriendly face loomed above me, surmounted by an elaborate headdress such as a royal official might wear. “You, there! Who are you and why did you jump from the ship? And where is the Cuckoo’s Child?”

I peered into the man’s unblinking eyes. By the white robes he wore, and the elaborate jewelry at his neck and wrist, and the markings of kohl and other cosmetics on his long, dour face, I knew he must be some high-ranking chamberlain of the king’s government.

“Where am I?” I said.

“Answer the question!”

I caught my breath. “If you mean Artemon—”

“Yes, yes, the Cuckoo’s Child! We were to pick him out of the water.”

I drew a sharp breath, startled by what he had just said. “We left Artemon back on the wharf. Cheelba the lion attacked him. Then the king’s soldiers captured him—”

“What?” The chamberlain curled his lip. “That’s not what was supposed to happen. Holy Isis, what sort of mess have you bandits made of things?”

I managed to sit up. Bethesda did likewise. I looked to see that she was all right, and then put my hand on hers.

“I am not a bandit,” I said. “I am a Roman citizen named Gordianus.”

“Is that so? You were seen jumping off that ship, which is full of bandits.”

Yes, and I was their king!
I wanted to say, but restrained myself. “It’s true that I was on the ship, but only because I was captured by those bandits and forced to travel with them.”

The chamberlain peered down his nose. “And the girl? Who is she?”

“Her name is Bethesda. She’s my slave. She, too, was captured by the bandits.”

Another voice, male but high-pitched and with an elegant accent, entered the conversation. “A lovely young couple captured by bandits! Oh, dear, it’s like something out of one of those sordid mime shows! How delicious!”

The chamberlain turned about in alarm. “Your Majesty, you mustn’t be seen on deck. Please return to the cabin—”

“Oh, do be quiet, Zenon! And get on with your interrogation of this attractive young couple. Even soaking wet, I find them quite beguiling. Especially soaking wet!”

The chamberlain rolled his eyes.

I blinked, and blinked again. Surely I was dead, or dreaming, or transported to another realm of existence. Any explanation seemed more likely than the impossible reality that I found myself aboard a royal barque in the presence of the king of Egypt.

Before me stood one of the fattest human beings I had ever seen. He was also by far the most elaborately dressed mortal I had ever laid eyes on. On his head, rising like a stem from a gourd, was a ridiculously tall atef crown. He had many chins, and each chin seemed to be festooned with its own fabulous necklace. His sheer bulk demanded many bolts of linen for its adornment, and these vast garments were so richly spangled with jewels and precious stones and golden accouterments, all lit by the lowering red sun, that I had to shield my eyes to look at him.

To rest my eyes from so much brilliance, I looked around me. The ship was a match for its owner, for never had I seen anything made by men that could rival it for sheer magnificence. Every surface was decorated with the costliest materials and the most exquisite craftsmanship. The result was so beautiful and so ornate that the vessel hardly seemed to be a ship at all, but rather a floating temple or palace. Thus would a god take to the water, if gods had need of ships.